


You Already Know Though

by andwhatyousaid



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Celebrity Family Feud, Emo Fictional Extrapolation, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26655064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andwhatyousaid/pseuds/andwhatyousaid
Summary: The most melodramatic fictional extrapolation of Fall Out Boy filmingCelebrity Family Feud.
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 14
Kudos: 44





	You Already Know Though

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone was wondering: yes, [these](https://joannaeris.tumblr.com/post/630148737001488384) [gifs](https://joannaeris.tumblr.com/post/630062451362250752) [are](https://fobadeux.tumblr.com/post/629920362562469888/bonus) [the](https://fobadeux.tumblr.com/post/630185832329953280/patrick-martin-stumph-born-april-27-1984) [entire thesis](https://andwhatyousaid.tumblr.com/tagged/family-feud) for this tiny fic, though I hope you have all viewed [the segment in its entirety](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7wc9p9), for your own benefit. Major TY to [carbonbased000](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carbonbased000/pseuds/carbonbased000) for, as always, indulging me perhaps more than I should ever be indulged. Anyway, per usual, this is not what I thought I was writing the whole time I was writing it. All mistakes are unfortunately my own, and OFC, this is 1000000% fiction. (Except maybe the complaints Patrick has.) Title sourced from [Roses](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zToEPpFEN8) by SAINt JHN.
> 
> Thank you kindly to anyone who chooses to read! Hope this offers some level of escapism.

In retrospect, Pete should have seen it when they first got the invite to do _Family Feud_ —at least, that’s what he tells himself now, after the fact. All he can think, like watching a VHS tape rewind, is how he missed the signs: the way Patrick had shrugged on just this side of _too_ -casually when the offer first came up and everyone else was game; how he mentioned fleetingly, in passing to Pete between one car ride and the next that he didn’t really like competitive games but sure, it could be fun anyway, and _Weezer_ was there, so, how could he _possibly_ say no; how he’d asked Pete if he could borrow an oversized jean jacket, and that he wanted to wait to shave his beard off until after the appearance, like it’d conceal his face further from the camera. And then, all during the shooting, how Patrick had loitered around as long as possible by the catering table and with the crew backstage before he’d been hauled up front, onto the platform, into the spotlight. 

Pete doesn't see it until now: with Patrick left alone on the stage, looking small as ever next to towering, bulking Steve Harvey, having missed the last answer and, by extension, lost the game, and for a splitting second —there’s a look on Patrick’s face, like he’s waiting for the floor to swallow him up. This whole time, Pete had been chalking it up to the usual nerves, the same, old Patrick-isn’t-the-frontman. On _The Price is Right_ , they’d been fine —better than fine, even. But now it’s somehow not, Pete can see it, drawing over Patrick’s face. Soon, it’ll be all closed in, like Patrick’s balled up whatever feeling that is and stuffed it somewhere, and a veil will come down, and he’ll laugh at himself and joke and make the best of it, and maybe other people won’t be able to tell that they’re looking through a veil, but Pete _will_. 

The problem is —now that Pete’s seeing it, he can’t stop.And he can’t seem to get Patrick alone, either. He tries first as soon as the cameras are off, and everyone’s mingling between the stage and backdrop, the audience being ushered out through a side door. He slings his arm over Patrick’s shoulder and tugs him closer and drops down to whisper towards his ear: “Alright, man?” 

But Patrick pats him on the back, politely, and the tightness around his eyes doesn’t lessen any as he says, “Never better.” 

If only everyone else wasn’t around —then Pete could call him out on lying through his fucking teeth, but everyone _is_ around, and Pete guesses that’s the point, anyway, why Patrick’s lying at all, so he lets Patrick let him go. 

He doesn’t push when Patrick rebuffs his second attempt, either; they’re the first ones outside the venue, standing around in the bright L.A. sun, waiting for everyone to figure out who’s going where, and Pete says, “So, I just got the new Funko for Freddie Mercury,” wheedling, and instead, Patrick puts his Ray Bans firmly on and says, “Nah, it’s cool,” staring down at his phone as if it has some answer, though it’s sitting there blank in his slack hand. “I have a date with GarageBand.”

“You always have a date with GarageBand,” Pete tries. “Have a date with me instead.”

But Patrick will hardly look at him, and then Green and the guys from _Weezer_ catch up to them, and Pete knows the moment’s lost, it’s over. 

There’s no time after that —with all the friendly goodbyes that Patrick seems to slip out from, nearly seamlessly, squeezing Pete’s elbow but gone by the time Pete turns his head to look, only finding Patrick’s lone form heading out across the parking lot, his hands in his jean jacket, his hat still on, his head angled towards the gravel, not even looking back. 

So, Pete pushes after that. 

+

“It doesn’t actually make sense, though,” Patrick’s saying. “Like —ponytail and wigs _is_ hair. That’s all I’m saying. It’s fucking arbitrary.” 

He’s finally loosened up, at least. Pete can’t help from cracking a smile at that —he looks much better in a borrowed pair of sweats, slumped into Pete’s couch with an open bottle of beer, his hat finally off, his glasses just a touch askew. 

Pete resists the urge to correct them and says instead, “No, I get it. You’re not wrong.” 

“Right? Okay, and ‘memories’ totally counted under ‘graves.’ Like, if ‘tooth’ was somehow a ‘head slash body part,’ then, I mean…” 

He says it so genuinely, so indignantly that Pete’s at a loss for what to say next. He reaches along the couch to pull Patrick into him. “Look, if it was me that was the judge?” 

“Psh,” Patrick says, and moodily takes another sip, but he doesn’t shift away, leaving his shoulder tucked into Pete’s side. “What’d you mean, you would’ve made me work for it! And like, argue why.” 

Pete laughs. “Nah, I would’ve just read your mind.” He taps the side of Patrick’s temple for emphasis. 

Patrick turns a little to look up at him. His face is a bit flushed from the alcohol, and his hair is messy from the angle, and his glasses are still askew. “You wish,” he says, but it sounds like he means something else, though Pete can’t imagine what he would leave out. 

He fixes Patrick’s glasses so that he doesn’t think about it any longer, and then asks, “So lay it on me, what else did they get wrong?” 

  
  


+

  
  


Later that evening, when the kids have been put to bed and it’s just Pete creeping through the quieted, darkened halls of his home, alone, his phone buzzes from his sweatpants pocket. He opens the screen to see that Patrick’s finally messaged, which he always does to let Pete know that he made it home safely, but now he’s just sent: _Thanks._

It sits bare at the bottom of Pete’s message thread; above that, they’d last texted much earlier that day, about something else entirely, from before they filmed. 

Suddenly, Patrick’s face closing like a shutter slamming shut appears in Pete’s mind all over again. He manages to text back: _i didn’t do anything_. As if he’s confessing a sin. He doesn’t say _you deserve more_ , but it’s close.

_You did_ , Patrick’s quick to respond.

Pete raises his eyebrow at that: _what did I even do?_ Besides force Patrick to come over and drink alcohol and vent about all the (mostly) correct and necessary revisions for _Family Feud_ and tell him to work as a consultant. 

He can picture Patrick’s shrug at it —from what feels like the other side of the world now, probably curled up on his own couch, the blue-ish glow from his laptop screen illuminating him, still wearing the sweats Pete loaned him maybe. In answer, Patrick finally says, simply: _Everything_. 

As if that’s nothing. As if it’s effortless. Pete just about rolls his eyes and starts to type back, something too close to real but enough of a joke to play it off — _Anything 4 u sunshine_ —and then his phone vibrates again and another blue bubble from Patrick pops up and this one says, blankly and plainly: _I love you_.

Pete fumbles with his phone so bad that it falls to the floor in a clatter. He checks around the hall like someone saw him, like he's been caught, but no one is there, of course, the bedroom doors still shut and quiet, and he bends slowly to retrieve his phone, as though it’ll reach out and shock him if he moves too quickly. He checks the screen. The text is still there. 

Pete doesn’t know what he’s hesitating for, except that the whole world has turned into a fish bowl and if he blinks too fast his vision is blurred at the corners, wet like paint starting to smear, and his heart seems to have climbed up to his throat. He tries to get his hands to quit shaking long enough to type back _i love you too_ because of course that’s true, of course he does. He doesn’t add _man_ or _bro-ski_ or _buddy_ or anything after it, though it’s like resisting the tide not to, like resisting a reflex, and he presses send and then swallows down his heart. 

He doesn’t know how he makes it down the stairs, but suddenly he’s there, and trying to tidy his dimly lit kitchen, and his phone hasn’t buzzed with anything else, and Pete —can’t actually resist the reflex any longer, so he types: _hope the hangover isn’t too bad tomorrow_. He adds the little drunk face emoji. And then he stares at it and the blinking cursor as if that will make the text send itself —and he knows, he _knows_ if he hits send, it will change the whole thing; he’ll write it off as Patrick being drunk and more affectionate than usual and still recovering from the awful bout of overly self conscious nerves from earlier, and Patrick will dismiss it too, and nothing will change. If he hits send. 

He stalls so long that Patrick must feel it from the other end, must’ve given up on the floating ellipsis bubble that would’ve indicated Pete writing —or thinking —back at him, and he responds for the both of them: _Wasn’t sure you’d say that._

And then, as if to make no mistake, as if to leave no ambiguity: _But I’m glad you did._

Pete backspaces. Then types _me too_ and sends it immediately. He rubs his hand over his forehead, partly to make sure it’s still there and hasn’t floated away, and partly to dab at the desperate sweat forming, and swears a little to himself because what is he supposed to do _now_ — _can i see you?_ He writes, and can’t recall a time he’s ever had to ask Patrick that, but the vacant, white walls of his kitchen suddenly feel like they’re closing in, containing him, like he’s going to burst at the seams without them. So that he doesn’t crack his phone screen in half, he busies himself with tossing away the squeezed-dry Capri-Suns and empty cardboard box of chicken nuggets and additional beer bottles that had littered the countertop throughout the evening until Patrick finally responds: 

_Of course._

Which has Pete nearly tripping over himself to get to the end table by the front door for his set of keys, scrolling for his neighbor’s number through his phone with his other hand so that she can stay for just like, an hour tops with the kids while he drives at breakneck speed and violates all traffic laws to get to Patrick’s. An hour wouldn’t be enough, but it would do the trick. 

Then Patrick says: _Tomorrow._

Pete stills in the foyer, the keys a cold weight in his hand, and brings the phone screen closer to his face as if that will help him read it better and morph the message into something else. He almost had the door open. 

_It’s late._ Patrick’s still typing. _There will be tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Get some rest?_

_how can i possibly? how can you possibly expect me to?_ Pete wants to say. Instead, he says _promise?_

_Promise._ Patrick says. _I just wanted to tell you.  
_ _But I don’t think it was anything you already didn’t know?_

And Pete supposes, in a way, Patrick isn’t wrong. If he rewound the whole of it —the past too-many-to-count years —he might find that it’s true, that he has always known, like an inevitability, as inevitable and unavoidable as them forming a band to begin with after he first laid eyes on Patrick. 

_im no more or less surprised that you are._ He writes, and hopes he isn’t wrong there, picturing Patrick’s face looking up at him from the couch earlier. _goodnight. ill be thinking of you._

_Me too._

Pete takes a shaky breath in and finally releases his keys, freeing them. He won’t sleep at all tonight, he knows it —caught awake in his horribly unsatisfying bed and twisted in the all-wrong sheets —and he’ll wait and wait until it’s _tomorrow_ , until he can see the sun breaking dawn from his window for himself.

**Author's Note:**

> TBH, I blame COVID-19 for the confession happening via text. SRY.


End file.
